Good general introduction. Well done presentations (minus slide background that makes it hard to read). Would like to take this class concept to a small RTOS application with similar teaching walk-thru ...

Having trouble downloading the audio to an MP3 file. Is it possible for someone to post links to this rather than the web based flash player ? Sometimes I can snag it using RealPlayer downloader, sometimes not. Don't have that issue with other links, like youTube. Something about the blogRadio hosting, I would guess. Would like to archive the file and put on my iPod to go along with the slides.

Thanks Kentj (So do I! LOL!) I'm writing a Fat16/32 file system right now. Origionally released the product with only Fat 16, but getting cards smaller than 4G is getting tough now. ANyway hope to see ya in cyberland.

YEa it veries by uP Manufacturer. In the Rensas part, you can put it in the protected mode to insure nothing can disable the watchdog. In this case, there's no way to disable it without a total reflash of special registers that are set in compile (or assembly) time. I don't believe they can be reprogrammed without a total erasure of the part. I still have questions in to Renesas about this though.

Lots of the challenges of the bootloaders is not the actual reprogramming steps or translating an Intel HEX file but the handling of intregity checking and exception recovery. This becomes more challenging when the source is not local "streaming" or is not reliable where error recovery is needed.

For many of these issues the ability to get the boot loader right is challenging and it too may need to be updated in the field. Addressing this as part of the "advanced" class might also be useful.

any good free alternatives to CCS compiler for folks who are not intimidated by having to do a little more work to set up a commandline/batch compile environment? ide's are great and add value but i don't find them an absolute requirement for small projects.

@bartholemew: I think there is an Open Source C compiler out there for PIC. However, I can't put a name on it.

If we are looking at other boot loaders - it would be useful to do a class on "streaming" boot loading (no local storage) and some of the complications associated with that along with unreliable streaming (WiFi) channel and issues associated with that as well.

Source code of PPT slides does not match the downloads from the .ZIP file .

@bitbanger55: Trust the zip file code. I had to cut and trim things to make them fit the slides. I made some corrections to the zipped code as well. Plus, if we were to examine all of the code line by line, this would be a 10-day class.

any good free alternatives to CCS compiler for folks who are not intimidated by having to do a little more work to set up a commandline/batch compile environment? ide's are great and add value but i don't find them an absolute requirement for small projects.

@YvonH - regarding bad sound: if you hapeen to be using google chrome, note that chrome uses its own embedded version of flash and there can be conflicts with any other flash installations on your machine. quckests experiments to try to fix audio problems are to load the webinar page in differentn browsers. if you need to use chrome, go to your extensions and disable all but one of the flash players that chrome is using.

I think I was one of the first CCS complier users back in the 1990's. I bought it because I could not believe you could write a C compiler on a PIC that only had a 3 level stack back them. Been using them ever since.

what I did, is in powerpoint, right click on background, click on background, then click on the pulldown on left side. Select leftmost white box and select. Then hit apply to all slides. that should remove the background from all slides. Save as a copy if you want to keep the original.

In Vermont, 19°F, overcast, and depending on the source, 12-18 or 18-24 inches of snow by noon Saturday. Given the temperature (overnight low of 13°F) it should be light and fluffy. For me, it's a good thing.

The .ZIP file URL is properly spelled (http://www.edtp.com/dsn/bootloader-code-designnews.zip) in the text but the actual embedded HTML target when clicked on is spelled /dns/ by mistake . So copy target URL text rather than clicking on hyperlink. The links that work for me are:

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.